IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA : CRIMINAL ACTION

:

v. : NO. 05-454-3

:

MAURICE DAVIS :

MEMORANDUM

KEARNEY, J. September 28, 2023

Maurice Davis petitioned for habeas relief arguing his conviction for Hobbs Act robbery 

did not qualify as a crime of violence. He petitioned for relief shortly after the Supreme Court 

found the residual clause of the Armed Career Criminal Act is unconstitutionally vague. Convicted 

persons asked trial courts facing habeas petitions challenging completed Hobbs Act robbery 

convictions to stay further rulings until more definitive guidance. We did so. Our Court of Appeals 

offered definitive guidance in March 2023 holding a completed Hobbs Act robbery is a crime of 

violence. The Court of Appeals later issued the mandate allowing us to proceed in resolving these 

challenges. Mr. Davis now moves to lift his requested stay and rule on his habeas petition given 

this recent guidance. We grant Mr. Davis’s request to lift the stay. We deny his habeas petition 

consistent with our Court of Appeals’s detailed analysis. We find no basis to issue a certificate of 

appealability. 

I. Fact and procedural background

A federal grand jury indicted Maurice Davis on conspiracy to interfere with interstate 

commerce by robbery and interference with interstate commerce by robbery, and aiding and 

abetting in violation of the Hobbs Act, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1951(a), and one count of using and carrying 

a firearm during a crime of violence in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 924(c)(1), for his role in the 

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robbery of two retail stores in Philadelphia.

1 Mr. Davis pleaded guilty.2 The Honorable J. Curtis 

Joyner sentenced Mr. Davis to a total of 240 months of imprisonment.3

The Federal Defenders petitioned for habeas relief in May 2016 challenging Mr. Davis’s 

conviction for the use of a firearm during a crime of violence under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c).4 Mr. Davis 

argued Hobbs Act robbery does not qualify as a crime of violence under section 924(c) resulting 

in an unconstitutional conviction and sentence after the Supreme Court’s decision in Johnson v. 

United States.

5 On May 15, 2016, then–Chief Judge Petrese B. Tucker issued an Administrative 

Order staying all motions filed under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 seeking collateral relief based on Johnson.

6

After no clear direction for a few years, our Court of Appeals in United States v. Stoney in 

March 2023 held a completed Hobbs Act robbery is a crime of violence under section 

924(c)(3)(A).7 The Federal Defenders notified us of the Stoney decision, now final, and moved to 

lift the stay in this case.8 The Federal Defenders concede our Court of Appeals’s final order in 

Stoney requires we find a section 924(c) conviction in which the predicate crime of violence is a 

completed Hobbs Act robbery is valid under Johnson and Davis.

9

We grant Mr. Davis’s Motion to lift the stay and dismiss his habeas petition as foreclosed 

by Stoney. 

II. Analysis

Our Court of Appeals’s June 20, 2023 mandate in United States v. Stoney allows us to 

address Mr. Davis’s habeas petition challenging his conviction on a completed Hobbs Act robbery.

Congress allows a federal prisoner to seek habeas relief from his sentence under 28 U.S.C. 

§ 2255 by moving to vacate, set aside, or correct his sentence in four circumstances: (1) the 

sentence imposed violates the Constitution or laws of the United States; (2) the court lacked 

jurisdiction to impose the sentence; (3) the sentence is in excess of the maximum authorized by 

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law; or (4) the sentence is otherwise subject to collateral attack.10 We may only vacate a sentence 

if we find “judgment was rendered without jurisdiction, or that the sentence imposed was not 

authorized by law or otherwise open to collateral attack, or that there has been such a denial or 

infringement of the constitutional rights of the prisoner as to render the judgment vulnerable to 

collateral attack.”11

Congress through the Hobbs Act allows the United States to charge a person who is 

believed to “obstruct[], delay[], or affect[] commerce ... by robbery.”12 Congress requires a 

conviction of Hobbs Act robbery carries a term of imprisonment of up to twenty years.13 But 

Congress through the Armed Career Criminal Act authorizes further incarceration if a convicted 

offense—here, a completed Hobbs Act robbery—qualifies as a “crime of violence.”14 Congress 

mandates a person may face an additional felony conviction and further punishment for using a 

firearm during the crime.15

To qualify as a “crime of violence” under section 924(c), an offense must meet the Act’s 

“elements clause,” meaning “an offense that is a felony and ... has as an element of the use, 

attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person or property of another.”16 The 

Supreme Court in Taylor instructed us to make this determination by applying a “categorical 

approach.”17 We use a categorical approach because section 924(c)(3)(A) requires the felony to 

have “as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force.”18 When answering 

whether a felony “has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force” 

we do not “inquir[e] into how any particular defendant may commit the crime.”19

Our Court of Appeals in Stoney held a completed Hobbs Act robbery is categorically a 

crime of violence under section 924(c)(3)(A).20 The court explained the categorical approach to 

determine whether an offense qualifies as a crime of violence under section 924(c)(3)(A) requires 

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we determine “whether the federal felony at issue always requires the government to prove—

beyond a reasonable doubt, as an element of its case—the use, attempted use, or threatened use of 

force.”21 The court further explained “to win a conviction for a completed robbery the government 

must show that the defendant engaged in the ‘unlawful taking or obtaining of personal property 

from the person ... of another, against his will, by means of actual or threatened force.’”22 The 

court then applied its reasoning to the language of the Hobbs Act and concluded a completed 

Hobbs Act robbery qualifies as a crime of violence.23

Mr. Davis challenges his section 924(c) conviction arguing: (1) the Supreme Court in 

Johnson held the “residual clause” of section 924(c)(3) is unconstitutionally vague and (2) Hobbs 

Act robbery does not qualify as a crime of violence under the “elements clause.” 24

We can now readily dispose of these arguments as foreclosed by our Court of Appeals’s 

analysis in Stoney. Under Stoney, a completed Hobbs Act robbery categorically constitutes a crime 

of violence under the elements clause of section 924(c)(3)(A), not the residual clause found 

constitutionally infirm in Davis. This holding does not run afoul of Davis and our Court of Appeals 

specifically noted Davis allows an analysis under the elements clause of section 924(c)(3)(A).25

We deny Mr. Davis’s habeas petition challenging his completed Hobbs Act robbery conviction as 

a crime of violence under the elements clause of section 924(c)(3)(A) as foreclosed by Stoney.

We decline to issue a certificate of appealability. Congress in section 2253(c)(1)(B) 

provides “[u]nless a circuit justice or judge issues a certificate of appealability, an appeal may not 

be taken to the court of appeals from -- . . . the final order in a proceeding under section 2255.”26

We may issue a certificate of appealability only if the petitioner “has made a substantial showing 

of the denial of a constitutional right.”27 A petitioner meets this standard “by demonstrating that 

jurists of reason could disagree with the district court’s resolution of his constitutional claims or 

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that jurists could conclude the issues presented are adequate to deserve encouragement to proceed 

further.”28 Mr. Davis fails to meet this standard. We decline to issue a certificate of appealability. 

Reasonable jurists could not disagree with our conclusion Mr. Davis’s constitutional claims are 

frivolous and not supported by the record. 

III. Conclusion 

We grant Mr. Davis’s motion to lift the stay and deny his habeas petition. No evidentiary 

hearing is required because the record conclusively shows he is not entitled to relief. Mr. Davis

failed to make a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right or shown jurists of 

reason could disagree with our conclusion. We find no basis to issue a certificate of appealability. 

1 ECF No. 27. 

2 ECF No. 70.

3

Id. 

4 ECF No. 162. Judge Joyner granted Mr. Davis’s pro se Motion for compassionate release on 

November 17, 2020. ECF No. 170. 

5

576 U.S. 591 (2015). In Johnson, the Supreme Court held the residual clause of the Armed Career 

Criminal Act, 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(B)(ii), as unconstitutionally vague. In 2019, the Supreme 

Court in United States v. Davis held section 924(c)(3)(B)’s residual clause is unconstitutionally 

vague. 588 U.S. ---, 139 S. Ct. 2319 (2019).

6 The Clerk of Court did not docket Chief Judge Tucker’s Administrative Order in this case but it 

appears on the Court’s website. 

7

62 F.4th 108 (3d Cir. 2023). 

8 ECF No. 181. 

9

Id.

10 28 U.S.C. § 2255(a). 

11 28 U.S.C. § 2255(b). 

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12 18 U.S.C. § 1951(a). Section 1951(a) provides: “Whoever in any way or degree obstructs, 

delays, or affects commerce or the movement of any article or commodity in commerce, by 

robbery or extortion or attempts or conspires so to do, or commits or threatens physical violence 

to any person or property in furtherance of a plan or purpose to do anything in violation of this 

section shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.” 

13 Id. 

14 18 U.S.C. § 924(c).

15 Stoney, 62 F.4th at 110. A conviction on a “crime of violence” under section 924(c)(3)(A) can 

also increase a federal sentence by imposition of a mandatory minimum sentence. Id. at 111.

16 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(3)(A). In Davis, the Supreme Court held the “residual clause” of section 

924(c)(3)(B) is unconstitutionally vague. Davis, 139 S. Ct. at 2336. The upshot of the Davis 

decision is the residual clause may no longer define a “crime of violence,” leaving only the 

“elements clause” of section 924(c)(3)(A) to define “crime of violence.” 

17 Stoney, 62 F.4th at 113 (citing Taylor, 142 S. Ct. at 2020). 

18 Taylor, 142 S. Ct. at 2020 (quoting 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(3)(A)) (emphasis in original).

19 Id.

20 Stoney, 62 F. 4th at 113–14.

21 Id. at 113 (quoting Taylor, 142 S. Ct. at 2020). 

22 Id. (emphasis in original). 

23 Id. 

24 ECF No. 162. 

25 Stoney, 62 F.4th at 111, n. 2.

26 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1)(B). 

27 Id. § 2253(c)(2). 

28 Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S. 322, 327 (2003) (cleaned up); Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 

484 (2000) (to satisfy section 2253(c), the petitioner “must demonstrate that reasonable jurists 

would find the district court’s assessment of the constitutional claims debatable or wrong.”). 

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